These Americans made a profit of 50% or more selling their homes

Flipping has also made a comeback in many U.S. housing markets

Portland, Maine.

Sometimes it pays to resist the flip, if you’re willing to live in a home for up to a decade.

Some Americans who bought their homes between seven and nine years ago have made up to $235,000 over that time selling their home, or $34,000 per year, making a final return on their investment of 78%. That’s the median amount of money home sellers made after 7 years and 3 months in Oakland, Calif., real-estate site Zillow found. In Portland, Ore., sellers last year sold for $145,000 more than what they had paid 9 years earlier, a 65% gain.

Those who lived in their home for 7½ years gained almost $40,000 on the sale — 24% upside. San Jose, Calif., was third on the list (up 56.5%, or $271,150, over 9 years and 8 months). Over the past decade, homeowners cashed out at record levels, including in Denver (up 56%, or $119,500), Los Angeles (54%, or $200,000), Sacramento (54%, or $82,500), Seattle (53%, or $185,000), Philadelphia (52%, or $40,225), New Orleans (51.5%, or $81,000) and Boston (50%, or $182,500).

This is also one reason younger buyers are priced out of the market. The top three destinations for millennials are Miami; Orlando, Fla.; and Salt Lake City, according to real-estate website Realtor.com, followed by Seattle, Houston, Los Angeles, Buffalo and Albany, N.Y. The rankings reflect job availability and affordability. (Realtor.com is operated by News Corp subsidiary Move Inc., and MarketWatch is a unit of Dow Jones, which is also a subsidiary of News Corp.)

What’s more, many homeowners don’t need to wait 7 to 10 years to earn a healthy profit on their property. If you bought a home for $110,000 and spent $30,000 renovating it, most homeowners would want to sell it for around $200,000 to make it worth their while, Mark Ferguson, a Realtor and creator of Investfourmore.com, told Realtor.com in June. In fact, home flipping was booming last year, when 193,000 single-family homes were flipped, a far cry from the 276,000 flips in 2006.

Of course, it’s difficult to sell in most of the hottest property markets without significantly downsizing and/or subjecting oneself to a longer commute. Personal-finance columnist and author Dave Ramsey advises cashing out if you can afford to buy a home that fits your lifestyle better and have factored in the cost of buying and selling. And if you don’t have equity that allows you to move? Ramsey advises: “Don’t sell unless you have to in order to avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure.”

Amazon Makes Plans To Open A New HQ in North America

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Amazon is looking to bring 50,000 jobs to one lucky city in North America.